Art encounter™, the new exclusive and unique Las Vegas art gallery located in The Forum Shops at Caesars, is presenting a meet-and-greet with American surrealist artist Geoffrey Gersten. Starting off 2014, he’ll visit the gallery: Friday, Jan. 10 from 4-7 p.m.; Saturday, Jan.11 from 4-6 p.m.; and Sunday, Jan. 12 from 4-6 p.m.

If you have read “Juxtapoz,” “Nerdalicious” or other magazines that focus on contemporary art, then you’ve probably heard of Geoffrey Gersten.

“Surrealism Meets Tech” is one way to describe Gersten’s paintings; “alternate retro-universe homages to Las Vegas and the classic robots” is another. His humanoid machines resemble images of robots from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

Geoffrey Gersten is a self-taught surrealist artist based out of Tempe, Ariz. He started painting when he was 21 years old and paints his works using oil paints mixed with natural resin.

It wasn’t until 2007 that he sat before a sheet of paper and began to arrange meaningful strokes upon it. “I became so hooked, like nothing I had ever experienced,” said Gersten. “This was it! This was really, really it.” And he knew from the start that he was going to be a surrealist.

“The experience of meeting an artist and learning firsthand about his work is inspiring,” said Art encounter’s executive director Scott Ferguson. “We’re looking forward to having more artists visit the gallery in the future.”

The new Art encounter gallery opened last November and it is the worldwide distributor for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Horse and Rider,” a bronze cast from a wax model from the hand of Leonardo himself. Art encounter has been serving Las Vegas since 1992 and until 2009 maintained the largest art gallery in Las Vegas. Their reentry into the retail fine art market is highlighted by high-end, museum quality art works from private art collections around the world.

For more information, phone 702-733-2000 during regular mall hours opening at 10 a.m. daily and closing at 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and midnight on Friday and Saturday.

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Jackie Brett has written about Las Vegas for 38 years in magazines and major newspapers. Her weekly column now appears on numerous Web sites and her coffee table book is "Fabulous Las Vegas" by
Beautiful America Publishing Company.